Member-only story
Fatal Words
35 Years Ago, A Cop Said Something Unwise, And It Contributed To My Sister’s Recent Death
Why couldn’t he have just kept that to himself?
There are some things you really should keep to yourself. You never know when a thoughtless remark might cause trouble. It might not happen right away. It might happen later.
In this case, it took about 35 years.
On April 11, 2022, my only sibling died in a terrible car wreck. She had just turned 52. Her body was ejected through one of the front-seat windows. The car, according to a relative who has seen it, was not as damaged as we had assumed.
You can never know these things for sure, but we believe her seat belt — if she had been wearing it — would have saved her life by keeping her inside her car.
However, my sister did not wear her seat belt, for one very understandable reason.
When she was a teenager, she was in another bad accident. The officer who found that wreck about 35 years ago told my dad that as he approached her badly damaged car, he was sure he was going to find a dead body inside. But my sister had broken the odds by having only minor injuries.
